A casual review of N.K. Jemisin's "The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth)"

[Delton Hulbert]

N.K. Jemisin has developed a world that shatters the real-world patriarchy in such a casual, unassuming way that, without focusing on those topics directly, I might never have noticed. There are so many fronts on which she wages quiet, clever war against the meta-textual “truths” that exist in our own world.

The three protagonist characters are women of vastly varying ages (a little girl, a young woman, and a middle-aged mother) and geographical locations, all within an empire called Sanze. The world is in constant upheaval, with earthquakes, tsunamis, and year-long winters occurring randomly and frequently. Right from the beginning of the story it is clear that something isn’t quite what it appears- the massive hub city, Yumenes, is alive and thriving in two of the women’s stories, but collapsed in the bottom of a tectonic rift in the third. Nonetheless, it doesn’t begin to feel strange until about halfway through the book, which is either a testament to the author’s subtlety or to my obliviousness. All three women are marred against the world, and it only gets harsher as the story progresses and worse and worse things happen to them.

Race, gender, class, and sex are not the axes of power in this empire—magic is. Or, rather, the lack of magic is the axis of power. Magic users, or “orogenes” are considered subhuman, and are enslaved and discriminated against despite the fact that it’s an innate ability (an aspect of a person’s biology), not a chosen skill. The most interesting, though, is how N.K. Jemisin has woven the axes of power that matter in the real world into her story. The protagonists are female orogenes, and only ever engage with men, but their explicit sexualities are never defined (and are therefore not important). The other characters, however, are as diverse and motley as they come— a bisexual pirate king, a homosexual Orogene, a trans-woman scientist, and several agendered, asexual characters make up only a few representatives of sexual and gender diversity. Race, skin color, and body type are also interestingly portrayed. Sanzed fosters a culture of survival and utilitarianism, and while skin color and racial features are definitely at play (people of different regions are typified by a set of features that are considered either more or less “attractive” by the general populace of other regions, and some features are considered desirable while others are not so), skin color is not a reason to discriminate against another person. The caste system that is employed requires certain physical traits that fulfill the needs of the society.

The caste system is not a class system, per se. Superiority is not engendered by the job a person is born into. That is, members of the Leadership caste are not inherently better or worse than members of the Strongback caste, but there are conceptions and etiquettes associated with it. Leaders demand respect, since they make all the decisions for their respective towns or cities, whereas Strongbacks are used to being bossed around since they work primarily with their hands, doing jobs for the builder caste and the engineer caste. It’s a fascinating play on the idea that everyone has a job to do, and while some jobs are more prestigious than others, that doesn’t make them inherently better or more important.

As I mentioned earlier, all three main, as well as a number of side characters, are orogenes, and mentally or emotionally damaged as well, mostly as a product of the prejudice they face every day. Many of the trains of thought from the protagonists are stark and shocking, especially when they come from the brain of the little girl. It’s unbelievably sad to read about the travesties against humanity that she sees as perfectly normal, everyday occurrences, and it’s the same with the older women, too. They never experience the enlightenment of adulthood that would allow them to hear the lies about themselves and dismiss them. Even the older mother still has the thought that “orogenes aren’t human, they’re monsters,” despite having been one for 40 years and having two orogene children.

N.K. Jemisin does a lovely job of tying the three stories together (I can’t go into it without spoilers, but suffice it to say that the lurking suspicions you have probably had since you turned the first page are true), though I would have liked to see the damages inflicted on the characters earlier in the story (both mental and physical) come back to haunt them a little more. The implied trauma isn’t always enough to convey the pain they must be experiencing.

The author addresses the reader directly, and while the clever anecdotes are frequent and poignant, they never detract from the overall feeling of unease that she sets in this world. In the prologue, N.K. Jemisin sets a wonderful conversational tone while disseminating the fundamental rules of the universe, using the English language as a tool for dark comedy and quipping exposition.

Overall, “The Fifth Season” was a tremendous read. The writing style, the characters and development, the texture of the world, and especially the enormous amount of diversity that N.K. Jemisin employs make me want to read the sequel.

Also, to N.K. Jemisin: Write a sequel.

 

[tinkerdan]

You made this sound so good that I downloaded the sample. I would suggest that anyone else having a interest should do just that. There's a map at the beginning and the prologue is entitle 'you are here' , which seems an unfortunate juxtaposition.

It begins in something akin to omniscient third and present tense: I think. There are problems, for me, with wording: with the syntax. I'll give a small example.

When she turns to the man— slowly; stone eaters are slow aboveground, except when they aren’t— this movement pushes her beyond artful beauty into something altogether different. The man has grown used to it, but even so, he does not look at her. He does not want revulsion to spoil the moment.

Jemisin, N. K.. The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth) (Kindle Locations 96-98). Orbit. Kindle Edition.

I think I understand what it says: think. But the line 'stone eaters are slow aboveground, except when they aren’t' threw me off enough to make me stare at for quite some time. I found myself getting lost through this whole prologue.

The prologue starts with::

LET’S START WITH THE END of the world, why don’t we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.

Jemisin, N. K.. The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth) (Kindle Locations 38-39). Orbit. Kindle Edition.

Which suggest everything before this is the past that; yet we keep in present tense throughout even when we travel to the past, which is not entirely bad just a bit bewildering.

Then about two pages in we are told this.

None of these places or people matter, by the way. I simply point them out for context.

Jemisin, N. K.. The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth) (Kindle Location 70). Orbit. Kindle Edition.

In truth there is a possibility by the end of the prologue it is all context and world building and the prologue is quite long I don't want to say unnecessary; but that's because it mostly confused me and I'm easily confused.

The warning of the title of the prologue becomes self evident as chapter one begins. This portion of the story is written in second person and was very difficult for me to get through. There seemed to be something in the style that kept things at distance and I think it might be intentional because we are dealing with someone who has just lost a child and that might have put them in shock. And this should work if done well; giving that sense of disorientation of only being half present. But there's this sense of some omniscient narrator telling you everything that's happening in the same manor as those text games in bygone days and no effort to get the reader past the numbness created by the telling.

There is a complete lack of emotion or at least the narration drives it out of sight and out of mind for me and I struggle to go on to the end of the sample which seems plentiful. Unfortunately there might not be enough sample here because so far this has not hooked me and maybe the real story begins in the next chapter.

Still I would advise that anyone interested in further reading perhaps read the sample. Perhaps that present tense second person emotionless aspect might draw you into the character and into the story where it left me cold. Where I would almost have expected some immersion into the character I felt like someone laboring under a hypnotic drug reacting to omniscient suggestions.

When I decide I have the time and the money to invest in the story I might go back and see if it gets better.

 

[Ursa major]

I haven't read this book, so I can't really comment on it. However....

Which suggest everything before this is the past that; yet we keep in present tense throughout even when we travel to the past, which is not entirely bad just a bit bewildering.

I've read a book, by a well-regarded SF writer, in which those parts set in the distant past (distant in time from the rest of the book, that is, but set in our near-ish future) are written in the present tense, but the far future stuff is written in the past tense. Oddly enough, I soon got used to it.

For obvious reasons -- spoilers -- I'll name neither the author nor the book.